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What's Your Focus? The Impact Of Regulatory Focus On Resource Acquisition., Regan Stevenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Entrepreneurs need resources. Previous research has established that entrepreneurs send signals of "quality" to potential resource providers in order to obtain resources. However, a behavioral research approach would contend that resource acquisition depends on much more than venture quality signals. In this dissertation, I extend beyond the signaling paradigm and investigate the resource acquisition process using a framework contingent on entrepreneur signals, resource provider dispositional differences, and their interactive effects. Specifically, I leverage regulatory focus theory and regulatory fit theory to augment and move beyond the signaling theory approach. Methodologically, I undertake two studies. The first study uses archival field …